State officials gauging how to attract Amazon’s interest for new HQ

Originally published September 8, 2017 at 6:43 pm
Updated September 8, 2017 at 10:04 pm

The Amazon Spheres in downtown Seattle with Amazon employees playing a game of broomball in July. (Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times)

Amazon reached out to the governor's office after announcing it was looking for a city to host a second headquarters. Officials in Olympia were still working to understand Amazon’s needs and intentions, to gauge if the company is interested in growing elsewhere in Washington. But that option could face steep challenges.

Regardless, it would be difficult to find a spot in Washington to match Amazon’s ambitions for a second headquarters, according to Joseph Williams, director of tech industry economic development for the state Department of Commerce.

For starters, there’s the challenge of finding enough tech workers or other qualified professionals to fill it.

“We’d be dipping into the exact same talent pool we’re already dipping into,” said Williams, a former Microsoft executive and Inslee’s lead on tech issues.

Williams noted the impending expansion of the University of Washington’s computer-science program. But in the scheme of Amazon’s grand plans, “that’s just a drop in the bucket,” he said.

“My sense is, the fact that we have a 50,000-person campus here in South Lake Union is amazing,” he said.

Even if the workforce existed, finding enough office space elsewhere in the Puget Sound region or the state could be a tough task, according to Williams.

Besides, bigger companies sometimes just want to diversify, he said. And Amazon’s goal of a coequal headquarters appears to be a unique approach.